People have no hard and fast right to use their name on their business if someone else already has trademarked it, said Durst and two academic experts – Mark McKenna of the University of Notre Dame Law School and J. Thomas McCarthy, senior professor at the University of San Francisco.

McKenna, however, called Kohler Co.’s assertions “a pretty aggressive use of their trademark rights.”

He said infringement requires the likelihood that consumers will be confused, in this case thinking Kohler Academy was connected to Kohler Co. That doesn’t strike McKenna as an obvious conclusion.

“Although Kohler’s a pretty well-known trademark, most people – at least my sense is – that they associate it with plumbing, with faucets,” he said. > Read Article